One of my writing students asked me what it would take to write a really great story.

     “What do you think?” I said. “What do the great writers have in common?”

     She mulled the question for a minute and gave me this list:

• good grammar and vocabulary skills

• creativity

• curiosity

• a good ear, especially for dialogue

• disciplined work ethic, and

• perseverance.

     “You get a B-plus,” I told her.

     “Why not an A?”

     “Because you didn’t mention 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯.”

     While others may disagree, I think passion, derived from personal experience, is what elevates a good story into a great one.

     Though Hemingway is not my favorite author, he 𝘪𝘴 my favorite example. Whether he writes about war, bullfighting, safaris or deep sea fishing, his characters are drawn from the deep and passionate well of his own experience. The man loved bullfights and befriended matadors, flew to Africa on safari, and often fished the deep waters off Cuba for giant marlin.

     He knew first-hand what it felt like to hook a great fish, to fight it for hours, till every bone and muscle in his body ached, and then to lose it, chunk by chunk, to the sharks.

     From that passion for fishing, and his real-life experience, Hemingway gave us 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘭𝘥 𝘔𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘢, which won the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.

BONUS THOUGHT: Passion is also the key to greatness in composing music, cooking, fixing cars, teaching algebra, and hanging drywall. In short, doing anything in life with excellence.